The dragonic turtle rumbled as it passed above them. The light of the Current wasn’t really coming from above, but somehow the giant being still cast its shadow over everything below it. Its presence was all-encompassing, heavy. It felt like a constant telepathic link, and at any moment Henry thought he might hear the monster’s voice bellow in his mind, like a crack of thunder. But it never spoke, and the huge presence only lessened and faded minutes after the giant shape disappeared into the clear light of the Current.

  Henry only dared move a couple of minutes after it had gone.

  “[What was that?]” asked Maurice.

  Stormsong peered at him, clearly wondering the same, so Henry raised an arm and realized it was trembling. He curled it and cast a small illusion of the being. The two stared at the miniature creature, eyes wide.

  “[This, but incredibly larger. A-rank. Dragonic turtle.]”

  “[I’ve never seen an A-rank. I could barely get myself to move…]” Stormsong said, voice still awed.

  “[It has a shell…]” Maurice said, eyes shining.

  Henry couldn’t blame him. He could feel the greed gnaw at him as well, but even though he considered sending a blood clone after it to try and sneak a bite, he quickly dismissed the idea.

  If he somehow pissed that thing off, he didn’t believe there was anywhere in the world he could hide from it. There was no Aspect that could camouflage him from an A-rank with such a presence. Henry was literally sure it had sensed or seen them, but it didn’t care about them.

  For something with such might, all three travelers might as well have been F-ranks.

  The two were still staring at the recreation, but Henry already re-checked the perimeter and the route with his Octominds, and it was time to move. He dismissed the illusion and slunk out from under the reef outcropping. “[Let’s go.]”

  Briskly, Henry followed the new path outlined by his navigation Octomind. He was taking them in the other direction from the draconic turtle, and with Telepathic Orchestration, he nudged Stormsong along the path they must take. His standby-Octominds were all helping the scouting-Octomind to watch out for danger, and they were almost at a new safe cave when the world broke in half.

  Or at least, it felt like it had.

  A world-shattering roar made Henry sink to the seafloor in panic. His clones—all of them—instantly dissolved, while his vision narrowed and his consciousness threatened to dim. To his side, Stormsong was blinking, flukes twitching as she shook her head, while Maurice’s claws hung limply around Henry’s arms. A trail of blood escaped from the crab’s mouth.

  Henry quickly pushed healing into the crab and into his own mind. He reached over to Stormsong with an arm as well, as she didn’t seem able to feel the effect of Orchestration, and his arm was knocked away instinctively by a burst of concentrated water.

  “[I’m healing you, come closer.]”

  The dolphin mumbled an apology, and Henry quickly summoned another batch of clones as the feeling that his head was full of cotton continued to fade. The clones swam forth, away from wherever the giant turtle had gone.

  All around them, creatures and fish of all sorts scrambled. Those who were still awake.

  “[Wha—what… happened?]”

  Henry beat his arm and followed the new path being created for him by his Octominds. This time, he activated Riptide Rush. “[Something’s fighting the turtle… I think. We can’t be this close.]”

  The kraken and the dolphin cut through the water fast. They saw a few predators that would have jumped on them any other day, but everyone was too busy getting the hell out of this part of the ocean.

  That was just a roar. A roar almost knocked all of us out.

  And it hadn’t even been that close to them. If that had happened when the monster had been atop them, they might have all passed out.

  ***

  The roars happened four more times in the next five minutes. But Henry, Stormsong, and Maurice were far enough that they weren’t affected much, aside from the primal fear that gnawed in their stomachs.

  Henry landed in a safe spot that his clones had scouted, but he had no intent on staying. He just needed to replenish some of his mana a bit and allow the ink clones to scout ahead.

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  He wasn’t creating blood clones right now. He needed to be careful about his mana, and he’d already expended quite a few of his mana and health charges.

  He hadn’t had to use those in a while.

  “[Do you think we’re far enough?]” Maurice asked after a few minutes. The crab was quieter than usual, staring at the world around them as if expecting something to come out of the murk at any moment.

  “[I don’t think we can be far enough from something like that… But we’re probably on the right path.]”

  Henry didn’t begrudge their anxiety. He was still shocked, and he would be as fidgety as them if he hadn’t been so busy. He was too focused on getting the hell out of this area, and he was both helping and assigning Octominds to help with the evacuation efforts. “[We’ll move shortly. A few more minutes.]”

  It was just dumb luck that the battle hadn’t happened atop them; now that he knew this was a possibility, Henry had to put some serious effort into finding such monsters before they happened to pass them by . Because if they stumbled into their territory and something happened, he wasn’t confident they could get away from danger fast enough.

  “Third and Fourth, try and use Pathfinding to find A-ranks. See if it’s possible to detect their presences. If we can, we should start taking a wide berth around them.”

  The Octominds confirmed and began casting spells. The scouting Octomind waited for the results, and a few minutes later, Henry saw two large red dots appear far behind them on the improvised minimap.

  I hope that’s accurate, and it’s not just making assumptions.

  Henry was about to speak when a third dot appeared. To the north-east. And they’d been heading north.

  Shit. Is this thing accurate?

  Henry wanted to double-check. He wanted to doubt his Octomind and the notoriously unreliable pathfinding skill, but he couldn’t. He remembered how accurate it could be.

  Maybe something about the Octomind and how it’s plugged into it is making it more responsive?

  Whether that was the case or not, now was not the time to test it out. Not when another dangerous monster could cross their path.

  “[We’re moving.]”

  Henry picked up Maurice and surged into the bright seas of the current, heading north-west, while a batch of clones watched their eastern flank.

  He wondered if they’d just happened to swim into dangerous territories, if it was the roars that were bringing the monsters near, or if the current had much more of those things than they’d expected.

  ***

  Nearly four hours of non-stop travel later, the trio dove into a crevice at the foot of an underwater mountain. While Henry sent his ink clones to scout and keep an eye around, Stormsong let herself drift to the stone below on her stomach, while Maurice pulled a piece of mystery meat out of his own stash and began silently eating.

  Minutes later, once Henry felt barely confident they weren’t resting right next to yet another monster, he broke the silence. “[That was a lot scarier than I expected.]”

  Stormsong blew bubbles in a snort, while Maurice stared at the piece of meat he’d been nibbling on, then threw it aside before requesting some squid from Henry.

  “[Now I understand why the pod moved whenever one of those things showed up. The difference of power is just…]” Stormsong let the word hang, and Henry could understand.

  It was hard to picture. He’d fought B-ranks at this point a couple of times and true, he had gotten his ass handed to him two out of three times, but nearly passing out from collateral damage? Because of a faraway roar?

  That put things in perspective.

  “[I never checked if there was a third A-rank back there, but they don’t seem that rare,]” Henry said after a while as he munched on some squid as well. The B-rank one.

  The meat was tough at first, but then it just melted in his mouth, and it was comforting after the harrowing day. Over the four hours, the pathfinding Octominds had drawn three more red dots. Henry had no clue how accurate that was. He didn’t know if there had been more that the pathfinding skill had missed, or if there were false positives.

  He would send a blood clone to check. He had to know.

  After a couple more bites, Maurice looked up. “[You think we’ll be able to get to that level someday?]”

  A few bubbles escaped Stormsong, but she caught herself and said nothing. Instead, she glanced at Henry. The kraken stared at the squid tentacle in his arm before he brought to his beak and tore a good chunk of it, and a human-illusion appeared on top of his head.

  Henry gave his image yellow eyes, to match his real-body’s eyes, and the illusion grinned.

  “[Why wouldn’t we?]”

  Maurice rubbed his claws and summoned his own smiling human-form, while Stormsong eyed both illusions. Maurice looked up at her, then at Henry. “[She needs an illusion too, Henry.]”

  Human-Henry nodded. “[Now that we confirmed the one-time skill can be transferred, we can really start.]”

  Henry looked at the world around through his clones, eying the local wildlife while his main-body began breaking down some more of his mana reserves.

  There was a lot to do over the next few days.

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